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Chess
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Re: New to the Board?

#51

Post by Chess »

Thanks Graeme.
Chess
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Re: New to the Board?

#52

Post by Chess »

It would be remiss of me not to say this, (I have no idea of your sailing experience) but if you do want to sail and live onboard around the tropical north of Australia I would strongly suggest you look at a bilge keel yacht. The tides can be high and savage, 22 feet in places - it can plane a boat on anchor. Much of Nth Queensland has vast areas of mud flats and shallow estuaries. With a bilge keel you can simply let the boat settle on the bottom and it stays upright until floated off by the next tide. The boat I was on drew 6' and we had the occasional drama running a ground, no fun when they start to lay over, and couldn't get into many shallow places, except by dingy. Lots of fun anyway arhh! :pirate:
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Paul Arden
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Re: New to the Board?

#53

Post by Paul Arden »

It’s partly for that reason that I’m most interested in a catamaran. I met a guy who sailed the word for many years in 44’ leopard cat. That’s ultimately my goal. Or similar! It also has the advantage that it gives guests their own hull. Or if my wife isn’t talking to me. :)

Cheers, Paul
It's an exploration; bring a flyrod.

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marlsounds
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Re: New to the Board?

#54

Post by marlsounds »

Paul Arden wrote: Sat Jun 20, 2020 11:59 am ...I’m planning a trip back maybe next Wet Season - ie the following November for three months. We shall see how that pans out...
Bugger. Hopefully next year, mate. I'd love to crack into some casting lessons with you when you're over here too. Never too late to learn right? :yeahhh:
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Paul Arden
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Re: New to the Board?

#55

Post by Paul Arden »

The only time we stop learning is when we keel over :D :pirate: I give lessons via Zoom and have a regular base of clients. I’ll be continuing these through to around Xmas when I expect borders to reopen and to have guests again. I’m seeing some excellent improvements. Undoubtedly the best results I’ve had as an instructor, but some of these guys have now had many lessons. One chap in particular in Hong Kong has just booked his second course of 10 lessons (I give 12 lessons for the cost of ten) and so has had 13 lessons with me now. From where he was back in March to where he is now definitely the best improvement I’ve seen from any student (one would hope so too!!). And actually the most fun to teach as a result.

A few details here https://www.sexyloops.com/index.php/ps/ ... -zoom-cast

Drop me a line if you’re interested! I’ll be offline from the middle of next week for ten days (filming a fishing show in Taman Negara jungle).

Cheers, Paul
It's an exploration; bring a flyrod.

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whinging pom
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Re: New to the Board?

#56

Post by whinging pom »

Hi all
New to the Board and I thought id better do as i am told and introduce myself. Some of you will know me from the fly fishing forums, I m looking forward to a much friendlier less fractious place.
I promise this will be my longest post by a country mile :)

As a kid from the seaside on a family holiday we wandered down from tarn Hows to Yew tree Tarn in Cumbria.,
A tall distinctive chap donned in Harris tweed appeared with a fly rod and thick line, I swear he had a pipe but memory may be playing tricks here.

I’d only ever seen 12’ cane coarse rods and nylon line and floats and split shot for catching tiny rudd and crucian carp from tiny farmyard ponds. This was a revelation and pricked my interest. I asked him what he was going to fish for, he said there was no ripple so there was little point. I guess he saw the disappointment in my face.
He had a small glass chalet and boat house by the tarn from which he produced a beautiful heavily shellacked old wooden rowing boat and then drifted into the middle of this small tree lined, tarn deep in the valley between Langdale peaks and the Old Man of Coniston . I was transfixed, as possible lifestyle choice and ambition this was peerless.

Then he started to cast!

He was stood up in the boat and he seemed to just fill the sky with incredible elegant loops, it was the most magical, dumb founding and impressionable vision for this 12 year old. He upstaged the very sky above. I don’t remember the line touching water; I don’t know if he caught even. I just remember the grace that he produced from that old split cane rod and thick line,and those beautiful, endlessly, unfurling loops.
The vision of which is still etched in permanence on my mind’s eye.

A few days later with an old 5’ spinning rod and a free lined worm in a tiny bolder stream in the village of Elterwater, put my first wild 6’’ trout into my hand. I’d never seen a wild brown trout before, and I've never wanted to catch anything else since.

The die was cast

For a relatively poor kid on a bike in St. Annes, fishing alas was back to the ponds. I got a paper round and bought every copy of Trout and Salmon just to keep in touch and keep that dream alive. I saved up and bought a copy of The Trout by Frost and Brown ( the treasured copy is still by me here at my desk) and I read it cover to cover, over and over.
One last summer fishing the ponds, some great Tench and Perch welcomed me to college age, and girls, and then studying and London squatting life and finally I all but forget about fishing.

Finally in my 40’s I found a nine foot split cane fly rod in a junk shop and the journey started again!

Now Im over a dozen years a member of a tiny Northamptonshire brook that had been badly poisoned by the steel industry in the 30’s and the flows and gravels ruined by the agricultural policies of post war Britain Then in the sixties had been taken on by the Angling times as cub water to stock with Rainbows.
When I joined it was a thirty members private club, 1500 fish stocked each year. I kept saying there was a population of wild browns but no one would have it!
1300-1400 fish lost to the system every year. It was nuts but I was finally fishing dry flies in a stream away from the still waters.

Keeping out of the way of the stocked fish and members down in the wilder, bramble tangled, tight casting, stretches of stream catching what i believed were the odd wild brown and vagrant stockie. i wasnt catching much and fish were hard won, but the quality of the experience was addictive.
Then I caught a 4 inch trout with parr marks, and the gloves were off!

I studied everything I could find about the effects of stocked fish on wild populations to counter every argument i knew was coming my way. We got the Wild Trout trust involved and based on their advice we started to work on the habitat.I emailed everyone i could find who trod this journey before, i searched out experts in fish genetics and populations and explained our model and asked what we could expect and realistically believe.

Tired of the slow rate of progress and the bureaucracy involved I started guerrilla tactics of working in sets of flow deflectors, taking down small trees, anchoring them in the fringes as silt traps and fry habitat downstream of potential redds. Tree planting in areas with no cover.Setting boards and stones for caddis and olive egg laying.
All the time contacting the secretary and saying “ive been down and done this… if you don’t like it ill rip it out!” I must have been a pain in the butt!
At the request of the Secretary the EA came, i guess hoping it would reign me in, they saw the improvements and complimented ‘our’work and started talking to me directly.
We dropped the stocking rate, we upped the habitat improvement, Started monitoring insect species and water purity, and finally after many strong words at the AGMs we stopped stocking as a trail policy.

Our last season of stocking the entire catch return was around 150 from a 1000 trout. The first season of wild recruitment, the fish were mostly small but my return alone was 125, and over 400 for the entire members. many of whom at first refused to fish thinking there would be nothing to catch. Despite them we over doubled the return.
My overgrown stretch which would in an entire season give up a handful of wilds and a few stockies upsetting the sytem, Now on a good evening produced 8-10 trout out of a possible twenty seen rising. The transformation was instant.
There was no turning back.

Ten years on;
After years of 7’10 0wt and then changing down to my now preferred 6’ 2wt with silk line and furled leader I’m happily getting a few hours down a few nights a week in summer when I can averaging 4 fish a visit. Most 1/2lb – 1½ lb ,but a couple of 3lb + a year. Great for a tiny water.

This year I've felt the wind of kingfisher flying over my shoulder so close to my ear. Had a mother otter and two pups frantically wresting in a ball downstream virtually into my wading lap, I've sat on a bank quite still while a white roe deer lapped water from the brook 8 feet away on the opposite bank.I ve watched huge skeins of geese migrating over head in the dusk and watched shooting stars burning out in the same field of view!
Its often magical and memorable and thrilling and catching trout is only really part of it. I'm a lucky chap.

It seems for our brook the biggest problem is where are the juveniles? Working out where is the bottleneck in the system? and how can we free it. To this end I have scale sampled and carefully measured 80 of my catch this year and am awaiting the results on our growth rates from the EA lab, and i'm about to get to work cleaning the redds of silt and a winter of habitat work focused on fry and juvenile habitat.

And for me.. personally, my biggest fishing problem? After a dozen years of tiny improvised casts with little rods, Well I’m now feel further from that dapper chap in the rowing boat filing the Sky with grace and elegance.
The Harris tweed jacket is easy, but thats not really me,.
As for those, seemingly endless, unfurling loops upstaging the sky itself… well that’s why I’m here! ........Completing the picture i guess.


if you've lasted to here..well done. I thank you.
The Duffer of the Brook !

Nothing is Impossible: :???: I do Nothing everyday .
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Paul Arden
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Re: New to the Board?

#57

Post by Paul Arden »

:D :D Brilliant!! That’s a wonderful success story WP. It’s interesting how almost everyone looks at problems and finds a million reasons why change won’t work. Every change starts with one person. Your story reminds me of Bernd’s recent story; working for years to turn his local Zander water into C&R/slot limits. Congratulations that’s a fantastic achievement! Great to be that person who initiates the change. It’s never easy when you have a wall of people telling you it’s impossible.

I may have met your chap but he wasn’t wearing Tweed. I was skipping school on a stormy summer afternoon and all I knew was stripping streamers on the reservoir because that’s pretty much all everyone did. These were in the days before lightning would seek out fly rods, or if they did we didn’t know about it. I could see a lot of fish but couldn’t catch them. Every time I looked around through the torrential rain I could see this lone bearded angler catching a fish. He was fishing differently to me. Finally he walked down the dam towards me on his way home, and struck up a conversation. He took my lure off the end and tied three small buzzers to a long leader and taught me how to fish them and see the takes. He left me with a bunch of small Cove Pheasant Tails before disappearing off into the storm.

Doing what he said I caught a six pound trout that day. Of course now I know it was stocked but as a boy this was the most beautiful and monstrous fish I’d seen. And that was it. I then knew that every time there was a huge thunderstorm I could catch fish on Cove Pheasant Tails :laugh:

You’ve certainly come to the right place to improve your casting! I usually start with targets randomly placed from 25-50’.

Welcome to the Board!!! :cool:

Cheers, Paul
It's an exploration; bring a flyrod.

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ACW
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Re: New to the Board?

#58

Post by ACW »

Hi Pom
nice to see you over here.Its been good to see you back on the nasty fff .
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whinging pom
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Re: New to the Board?

#59

Post by whinging pom »

ACW Honestly whats it like? ! I reckon many could pick a fight with they're shadows and it's not even close season yet : I'm so relieved to be away from that
.Here it just feels positive and constructive in comparison.

Paul thanks for the welcome.
How great when a complete stranger helps you find your way. I can think of a few helped me on my way to here.
Its always nice to be able to pay it back to the community when you get chance, and often at the huge cost of a couple of old flies!

A few times i've managed to get people who would love to catch trout but have frustrating years of blanks and trying, wading along, sharing rods together and drifts and hits and misses and then get them to catch three or four wilds in evening. They've caught with my tackle and seen me catch with theirs, and then got them to catch on theirs too! Its such a buzz to know you've been along side they're memorable occasion and help banish that crisis in confidence.Broken the duck!
I envy you guys that guide, it must often be really gratifying to see your positive influence, and a great learning process in itself
The Duffer of the Brook !

Nothing is Impossible: :???: I do Nothing everyday .
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Paul Arden
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Re: New to the Board?

#60

Post by Paul Arden »

Guiding/teaching really is amazing. You are in the very privileged position to share fantastic moments, when the light bulb suddenly switches on, or the casting goes up a notch, or when the big fish smashes the fly nearly pulling the client out the boat :D

But it’s much more than that, you actually get to share your fishing world, the one that you are totally submerged in, with someone else. My guests usually come on their own and stay for 4-7 days. Sometimes longer. And they all come back. Many come every year and some come back three times/year! I sometimes think guiding is about passing on an obsession :D

Here it’s very difficult. It’s about one fish. If they can get one decent fish in the boat in a week then it’s a huge success story. And that fish will be indelibly printed in their minds for the rest of their, and my, lives. Over time, as the skills increase, and as they discover they can actually do it (because it’s such a mental game as well as a skills game) then we are looking for more numbers out of the opportunities given. Then the guy can fish and ultimately he can rent out a boat and we go fishing together in separate boats. Many clients never want that however and that’s fine. It adds another level of complication when you have to control and position the boat when setting up for your, often, only one shot.

Some of the most memorable fish “I’ve” caught, my clients have caught. That first Gourami or big Snakehead for example. I get to relive that through someone else. Funnily enough I actually think that the second Gourami/Snakehead often means more because they’re never really sure if the first one was luck!

I’m also in a particularly fortunate position when someone is coming for a week, knowing full well how difficult it is, then they are not idiots! Many of them come from totally different worlds. Hanging out with someone around a campfire or having a few beers at the end of the day – for a week! – you learn a lot about each other and make some truly excellent friends.

I first tried guiding when I was in my mid 20s. Totally hated it! Picked it up again in my mid 40s. Loved it! The difference was that I’d become a “people person”; I genuinely like people now whereas I didn’t before. That’s probably mostly about me growing up.

There is something else. Two things actually. One is where I am there is 365 days of fishing in the year. A guide really has to do 100 days to make his living. If your season is 180 days, with weather and best times of the year you might find your personal fishing time seriously encroached upon. Fortunately I don’t have that and fish more than twice as much as I guide. That’s very important for me because I need to keep it in balance.

The other thing is, I think most of us agree, that fly fishing is about learning. Every time we go fishing we learn a new piece to the puzzle. We are always learning right up to the time we meet the Big Gourami in the Sky. When guiding not only am I still learning but I’m often learning at a faster rate.

It’s not for everyone. But for those who love it it’s the best job in the world. Funny when I was younger I used to be against guiding and now I’m a guide. How ironic! :D

Cheers, Paul
It's an exploration; bring a flyrod.

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